The present invention relates generally to vehicular liquid sprayers and, more particularly, to an improved automatic control system therefor.
The problems involved with spreading a liquid product from a vehicular sprayer in such a manner as to provide a relatively uniform density of sprayed liquid have long been recognized. A particularly attractive solution to the problem may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,877,645 -- Oligschlaeger, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present invention. The system disclosed therein has been found to work very well in controlling the pressure at the nozzles as a function of vehicle speed in order to maintain a preset spread density of liquid irrespective of variations in the speed of the vehicular sprayer.
Although the Oligschlaeger system performs quite well, it does have some characteristics which might be improved for certain spraying applications. For example, a digital readout of the area of ground sprayed is sometimes very useful. In addition, the operator of the sprayer in some instances may desire to quickly change the nozzle size, rate of flow, or the number of nozzles used without taking the time to consult charts, tables, or instruction sheets.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved automatic control system for a vehicular liquid sprayer.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such an automatic control system which may be operated rather easily without the need to consult charts, tables, or instruction sheets.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such an automatic control system which also gives a visual readout of the total area sprayed by the vehicular liquid sprayer.